Basecamp podcast: Exploring shark awareness and safety measures on Cape Cod

Race Point Beach in Provincetown. (Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism)

Skiers and surfers have a lot in common. Their lifestyles are both based upon balance and coordination with a spiritual connection to the natural surroundings. Both skiers and surfers understand they need to have an appreciation for the elements, weighing the risk versus reward that adrenaline will deliver. 

Skiers have to deal with avalanches, bitter cold, and the outrageous cost of a bowl of chili in the lodge. But we don’t have to deal with sharks. 

On the latest Basecamp podcast, we head from the mountains to the shore to discuss safety on the beaches of Cape Cod, including shark awareness. Cape Cod Ocean Community is an organization looking to raise awareness and funds to encourage and support the implementation of white shark safety measures on Cape Cod. Co-founder Heather Doyle joined us on the podcast along with her husband, Drew Taylor and citizen environmentalist Mark Angelillo. 

Highlights from this edition of the Basecamp podcast

On how Cape Cod Ocean Community was formed: 

Doyle: Cape Cod Ocean Community started back in 2018 when a young man named Arthur Medici was taken by a shark, unfortunately, in our waters, in Wellfleet. And that was a sort of a tertiary event. Prior to that, there had been two other attacks of people that we either knew or didn’t know, and it becomes a sort of a rallying. point, right? Because everybody feels like something needs to happen….And it was a case where we go to a microphone and we’re like, ‘Hey, someone needs to do something.’ We have a small government here in Barnstable County on the Cape, and it was really a point of kind of looking around to say, geez, maybe we need to do something. Maybe we need to be helpful. Maybe we need to bring some ideas and solutions to the table, and maybe not as a vendor or a scientist, but just citizens and we can sort of use our own resources in terms of money and time. We can seek out these technologies that might help us be more safe and, and bring them forward to make larger decisions.

On what it takes to surf with the possibility of sharks:

Taylor: You heighten your shark awareness when you surf. With two or three other people, you know your partners, like you’re going into the woods. You have to think safety before you get there. We’re dealing with Mother Nature. She’s always gonna win. You can dance with her, but boy, when she wants to…when she wants to shut the door and close the dance floor, it’s over.

Listen:

The podcast can be streamed at skijournal.com/podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify and Amazon.